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encouraging as it has been elsewhere, or if other provision for white children should be unavailable, the institution could be adapted to the use of both colored and white by the simple addition of cottages.

Sixth. Intelligent observation and study of all wards of the District of Columbia for the purpose of determining which and how many of them may properly be transferred from the institutions or homes of hired nurses to free family homes, by adoption, indenture, or appren ticeship, and their removal to such homes as rapidly as such work can be safely accomplished. Those showing special capabilities, or for whom no suitable family homes are offered, would be sent to trade schools, or given appropriate educational advantages.

Seventh. Maintenance of the moral hold of the guardian upon the children, and the protection of both guardian and wards during the minority of the children, through active supervision of all placed out.

These we believe to be the essential features of an ideal system. Applied to the District of Columbia such a system would leave open to the Industrial Home School gradual development along industrial lines and toward the character of a trade school. The old apprenticeship system has passed away, and trade unions control and strictly limit opportunities for trade instruction. The field of usefulness open to the purely industrial school is wide enough and promising enough.

The appropriations for the year 1898 for the maintenance of children in institutions which would be affected by this reorganization, amount to $79,100. If recent rates of increase from year to year should continue, as for instance from $54,750 in 1893 to $79,100 in 1898, at the end of another five years the amount called for will be, under the subsidy plan, 44 per cent greater than for 1898, or $113,904.

Under the plan herein proposed, an outside estimate of the annual requirements at the end of five years from 1898 will be as follows: Maintenance of 50 children at National Colored Home, at $100 each Maintenance of 85 children at the Industrial Home School, at $150 each.. Maintenance of 100 children at the Farm School (to be established), at $150 each..

$5,000

12,750

Eighty infants boarded out, at $100 each

15,000

Medical attendance and supplies...

8,000

An average of 20 temporarily at the receiving station, at $120 each..
Feeble-minded children

1,000

2,400

Administrative expenses of the public commission, including rent of receiving station, all salaries, expenses of placing and visiting children, and all office and sundry expenses

10,000

15,000

Total......

69, 150

This will be $10,000 per year less than is now appropriated and $44,750 per year less than will be required under the subsidy plan, if past experience may be taken as a guide for the future.

An approximate subdivision of administrative expenses would be as follows:

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A BOARD OF CHARITIES.

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 21, 1897. To the Joint Committee on Charities and Reformatory Institutions of the District of Columbia:

The Washington Board of Trade, at a regular meeting held on April 26, 1895, after a thorough discussion lasting all the evening, adopted unanimously a resolution, reported unanimously by its committee on charities, declaring that Congress should be asked to abolish the office of superintendent of charities and to create instead a board of charities, to be composed of eminent citizens of the District of Columbia, serving without compensation. The argument for the proposed change, which was approved by the adoption of the resolution, was that the great need of the charities of the District of Columbia was a better organization as a system of cooperating agencies, and that this could be better accomplished by a board of citizens such as would be selected for this task than by a nonresident incumbent of the office of superintendent of charities. It was based upon the experience and testimony of Dr. Amos G. Warner, the first superintendent of charities of the District of Columbia, whose work on American public charities is a recognized authority and text-book.

After eighteen months' service as superintendent of charities, Dr. Warner became convinced that no one in that office could accomplish what it was intended to do, and that the work of bringing about a better system of charities in the District of Columbia could only be done by a board of unpaid and prominent citizens, having the confidence of the community and of Congress, and he therefore recommended the abolition of his own office and the substitution of such a board of charities. Congress, however, has taken no action on the subject. The committee on charities of the board of trade, in pursuance of the instructions given it by the board of trade to press this matter before Congress, drafted the following bill, which I am now authorized to present your committee on behalf of the committee on charities, having already, with the chairman of that committee, Mr. B. T. Janney, outlined its provisions at the public hearing accorded us by your committee:

AN ACT to create a board of charities in the District of Columbia.

Be it enacted, etc., That so much of the act of Congress approved August 6, 1890, making appropriations to provide for the expenses of the government of the District of Columbia for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1891, and for other purposes, as provides for a superintendent of charities for the District of Columbia, be, and the same is hereby, repealed.

SEC. 2. That the Commissioners of the District of Columbia shall appoint nine persons, residents of the District of Columbia, who shall constitute the board of charities of the District of Columbia, and shall serve without compensation, three

of whom, as indicated by the Commissioners upon their appointment, shall serve for one year, three for two years, and three for three years; and upon the expiration of the term of each the place, and that of the successor, shall in like manner be filled for the term of three years. Appointments to fill vacancies may be made in the same manner as original appointments.

SEC. 3. Said board of charities shall have the supervision, under the direction of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, of all the public charitable work of said district. It shall inquire into the management, condition, and operation of all the institutions in the District of Columbia which have for their object the reception or detention of persons at the expense, either in whole or in part, of the District of Columbia, and shall supervise their expenditures and the distribution of all funds appropriated out of the revenues of the District of Columbia for the relief of the poor. Said board shall formulate such plans for the better organization of the public charitable work in the said District as shall promote its efficiency and economy. It shall report from time to time to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, who shall communicate the reports to Congress, with their estimates for appropriations for charitable purposes. It shall perform any other duty which may be devolved upon it by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia.

SEC. 4. Said board may employ a secretary and fix his salary within the limits hereinafter to be determined by appropriations for such purpose, and may employ such clerical service as may be necessary for the performance of its duties; and the secretary and members of said board shall be reimbursed for expenses actually and necessarily incurred in carrying out the provisions of this act.

The committee on charities trusts that you will incorporate the ideas if not the language of this draft in the legislation which you recommend to Congress as the result of your investigation.

If such a board of charities were established, it would find the Associated Charities, in its reorganized and effective condition, a ready agency through which to work in the matter of all outdoor relief, while the Board of Children's Guardians, created by Congress on the recommendation of Dr. Warner, the first superintendent of charities, to take charge of all the public child-saving and child-caring work of the District of Columbia, would be its efficient agent for all the public charitable work for children. With the valuable assistance which these two established institutions, one purely private and the other purely public, would give the board, it would have a larger opportunity than would otherwise be the case for dealing with the rest of the local problem as to State and State-aided philanthropy.

Washington as the capital city ought to furnish the whole country the example of a model charitable system, and it is believed that such a board of charities as is recommended by the Washington Board of Trade would be able to materially aid Congress and the Commissioners of the District in bringing this about. In enacting such legislation Congress would simply be giving the District of Columbia such a board of charities as has been already established, under differing names and with differing powers, in nearly a score of States of the Union.

Very respectfully, yours, etc.,

HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND,

For the Committee on Charities of the Washington Board of Trade.

INDEX.

461

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